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Managing and Reducing Workload

11 June 2015

Additional workload is work teachers do for perceived and/or unnecessary compliance processes which takes them away from the complex process of teaching and learning. This is driven by an out-of-kilter accountability culture.

We believe that through a coordinated effort, teachers’ and leaders’ workload can be managed and reduced. However, we must not position teaching in an outdated industrial era of clocking on and off. Teaching is first and foremost a profession. As such it ignites passion and moral purpose. It is born of the conviction that teachers make a difference in the lives of children. Teachers come into the profession with a commitment to evaluate constantly the way in which their practice improves children’s and young people’s learning and life chances. None of this can be done from a narrow industrialist model of work.

However, there is a problem that needs to be solved – too many teachers say that they are required to carry out unnecessary tasks that add to an already substantial workload. We must therefore consider ways to reduce tasks that are done for unnecessary compliance processes that take teachers Away from the complex process of teaching and learning. Where school and college leaders are under pressure to drive unnecessary or onerous workloads, ASCL urges them to adhere to this guidance and will seek to support them.